This isn't a 1 vs the other issue. I'm a strong believer in 'one web' where the content comes first. However, there is a category of 'web app' where presentation is extremely important. If the content were to *arbitrarily* cause scrolling it would ruin the experience. Sometimes, You really want to lock down how the data is formated.
Take a calendar: it must be 7 days wide. The PURE one-web model would allow it to wrap. All I'm saying is that 'web apps' don't want to scroll arbitrarily, they want stronger editorial say in it's presentation. Can both exist on the web? Of course, I'm just saying some content is less tolerant to reformatting that others.

This isn't a 1 vs the other issue.I'm a strong believer in 'one web' where the content comes first.However, there is a category of 'web app' where presentation is extremely important.If the content were to *arbitrarily* cause scrolling it would ruin the experience.Sometimes, You really want to lock down how the data is formated.

Take a calendar: it must be 7 days wide.The PURE one-web model would allow it to wrap.All I'm saying is that 'web apps' don't want to scroll arbitrarily, they want stronger editorial say in it's presentation.Can both exist on the web?Of course, I'm just saying some content is less tolerant to reformatting that others.

Bryan said: …so essentially, any page with JavaScript that affects layout is actually an application?This is where we might be over thinking this issue.I'm not looking for this massive rule that locks things into web apps vs pages.My point came out of a frustration that people don't admit that 'articles' are different than 'apps'.Is there a sliding scale, are some pages a bit of both?Of course!I'm not looking for a water tight definition, only the realization that some content needs more layout control.If I'm writing a 'web app', I'm CONSTANTLY fighting the broswer's BIRTHRIGHT to scroll my lovely design 7 ways from Sunday.I'm just saying: sometimes that app, for better or worse, wants to be in control.

Aha, when you get past the 140 character limit things start to make a whole lot more sense.Couldn't agree more with the problem that the browser is a (scrolling) document browser first and foremost, and (unfortunately) an application runtime environment second.I fear this may be a case where it's not really possible for one technology to do double duty and serve both requirements equally well.I still think we need something along the lines of 'document mode' (default) and 'application mode' (remember Microsoft's HTAs) for browsers that might help with this problem.

Are these not just semantics?There are many applications that scroll as much as a web page, (a spreadsheet, a word processor), so how do we frame the question will lead us to the answers we seek.If the question is, can I create a web page that locks the layout?The answer is, of course you can.You can force a no-wrap using fixed width divs, and positioning them absolutely on the viewport.Some examples: code-sucks.com

Shouldn't this be looked at in terms of content?Authoritative content vs interactive content?Type of media/content consumption?Lean-in vs Lean-back experiences?Are presenting content or asking the user to do something with the content and does this require interaction with the hardware?

I was making a 'twitter statement' that clearly has many nuances.My point wasn't about "Apps that scroll' (which is clearly true) but more about the 'one-web' philosophy which really wants to 'write once, run everywhere.That model, greatly enhanced by RWD, allows your content to appear on many different devices, that that's good!My point was just to point out that we have two large canonical approaches: reflowing content on the one end and tight app experiences (think angry birds) on the other.Do they overlap?Of course.However, we STILL have a single DOM model.It might be time to consider changes to the DOM to make apps not have to work so, so hard in order to not reflow.

Although I'm not at all an expert, I wrote a paper (partially) on this subject last year in which I talked about the advancing capabilities of browsers as application platforms (Chromium, Firefox web app API's) and Web Apps as a trend of the evolving web.In this paper I tried to define web apps and came to this conclusion (translated from the original Dutch): "(...) A web app is a piece of software, allowing a unique and authenticatable user to carry out one or more tasks, possibly including changing some data permanently, using web technologies, running in a webbrowser (...)".It doesn't touch on some (interesting!) items that @andrewsmyk mentioned earlier in this discussion, though.